George Saunders Quotes

Quotes about:

• Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?

  George Saunders

  Life Is Short, Trying, Ifs

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• I'm always nice when I do drugs. But, you know, I'm nicer on the drug called "writing."

  George Saunders

  Nice, Writing, Drug

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you at least try to do the things that excite you, it will make you a more expansive and present person - you’ll feel, at the end of your life, that at least you took the shot.

  George Saunders

  Trying, Ends, Shots

  4 Copy quote

• I feel that there is nothing that can happen to a person that is banal. Everything that happens to us is interesting.

  George Saunders

  Interesting, Feels, Persons

  Source: www.slate.com

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• If you haven't read you don't have the voice. The lack of voice eliminates experience.

  George Saunders

  Voice, Havens, Ifs

  7 Copy quote

• What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

  George Saunders

  Graduation, Kindness, Regret

  George Saunders (2014). “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”, p.22, A&C Black

  44 Copy quote

• Err in the direction of kindness.

  George Saunders

  Kindness, Collaboration

  George Saunders (2014). “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”, p.56, A&C Black

  6 Copy quote

• What evil does first in the world, maybe, is distract us from our pursuit of goodness.

  George Saunders

  Evil, Firsts, Doe

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.

  George Saunders

  Life, Hurt, Confused

  George Saunders (2012). “The Brain-Dead Megaphone”, p.55, A&C Black

  46 Copy quote

• What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

  George Saunders

  Kindness, Regret, Advice

  George Saunders (2014). “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”, p.22, A&C Black

  52 Copy quote

• The scariest thought in the world is that someday I'll wake up and realize I've been sleepwalking through my life: underappreciating the people I love, making the same hurtful mistakes over and over, a slave to neuroses, fear, and the habitual.

  George Saunders

  Fear, Mistake, People

  34 Copy quote

• In the moment of reading, the writer comes up to the surface and the reader comes up to the surface and they kiss, like two fish. That actually does happen.

  George Saunders

  Reading, Kissing, Two

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

• According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

  George Saunders

  Graduation, Becoming, Life Is

  George Saunders (2014). “Congratulations, by the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”, p.52, A&C Black

  25 Copy quote

• The best thing we can bring to any fight is a calm and compassionate mind.

  George Saunders

  Fighting, Mind, Calm

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  15 Copy quote

• Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

  George Saunders

  Bigs, Incline, Big Questions

  George Saunders (2014). “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness”, p.56, A&C Black

  26 Copy quote

• I don't like that new age posture where you kind of tilt your head. I don't like that posture right now. I want something a little more confident and more sure of the values that we're defending, which are the old ones, love and empathy and patience and tolerance and civility. Not to get into politics or anything.

  George Saunders

  Want Something, Empathy, Tolerance

  Source: therumpus.net

  5 Copy quote

• ...smile first, then speak.

  George Saunders

  Firsts, Speak

  George Saunders (2007). “The Braindead Megaphone”, p.213, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• I heard Zen teacher one time talking about abortion, and he was saying the way that abortion makes bad karma is any time the person involved pretends that there's not a cost to the choice, one way or the other; whether you get it or don't get it, there's a cost. That's just basic responsibility, to admit that there's a cost. And the bad karma is when you pretend that the thing is free.

  George Saunders

  Karma, Teacher, Responsibility

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring it forth, it will destroy you.

  George Saunders

  Within You, Ifs

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.

  George Saunders

  Heart, Responsibility, Firsts

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

  George Saunders

  Average, Guy, Culture

  "This Week in Fiction: George Saunders" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. October 4, 2012.

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• When we talk about adversity, this is the moment when character really gets tested. When things aren't going the way you want and you can't see anyway that they're going to go the way you want. That's kind of when those old virtues really become valuable and vulnerable also.

  George Saunders

  Character, Adversity, Want

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue - having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly - in a good way.

  George Saunders

  Kindness, Simple, Thinking

  "George Saunders on Trump, Mystery, and Why He Rejects Social Media". Interview with Catherine Woodiwiss, sojo.net. August 30, 2016.

  8 Copy quote

• Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

  George Saunders

  Character, Moments

  23 Copy quote

• Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf - seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.

  George Saunders

  Medicine, Confusion, Advice

  George Saunders’ Commencement Address at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, 6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com. July 31, 2013.

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